


Thunderstorms

by amukmuk



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amukmuk/pseuds/amukmuk
Summary: Fox struggles with life after Order-66, Riyo is there to put the pieces back together.
Relationships: Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Comments: 17
Kudos: 120





	Thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this stems from another one of my works "Stitches". You don't have to read it before you read this one, but they do sort of play off of each other. 
> 
> This was also created from a prompt on tumblr: Could you do #57 and #91 for the prompts? There is a great need for more #Foxiyo fluff in the world 🥺 - (57 - Heart eyes when the other talks, sings, dances, argues, does literally anything which others make fun of them for/find annoying. 91 - I’m not kissing you in the rain, we’ll catch our death!)

Riyo brings her ship down in the back rice-marsh of her family’s farm. Unbuckling, she rises from the pilot’s seat and goes into the back where Fox is recovering from a heavy sedative. She feels bad, but she had to make a choice, and she had picked him. After she had drug his prone body all over the Goddess’s creation and had his chip removed, Fox lost his mind. She had stabbed the hypo into his neck before he could become self-destructive, but that had done nothing to ease her fear of another wave happening sooner or later. 

She doesn’t know which would be better at this point. 

“Fox?” She calls from the doorway.

Sitting up slowly, he rubs his head where the bacta patch lays. “W-what happened?”

She moves and sits next to him, placing a tender hand on his arm. “I’m not entirely certain… I… I may have kidnapped you, though. We are on Pantora. We… we are going to need a place to lay low for a while and… and my parents are kind enough to let us stay here on their farm.”

“Your parents?” He questions. 

She nods. “Inay and Ro Chuchi, proud rice farmers.”

Slowly he mimics her movement before croaking, “I fucked up.”

“No, you can’t think like that. We… we need to stay strong for a while longer, okay? Let’s just… go inside, eat, get cleaned up and we’ll go to bed early.” His eyes find hers and the anguish in them spurs her to squeeze his hand. “One thing at a time, okay?” She rasps. 

“Okay… one thing,” he exhales shakily. “At a time.”

She nods and eases him up. He has always been so strong and she remembers multiple occasions of being swept into his arms, but right now she is carrying him more than he is supporting his own weight. It breaks her heart. They are both so broken.  _ He  _ is so broken and that is probably the scariest part. 

They step off her ship and are met by her parents standing in the field waiting for her. They are just as she remembers them, except perhaps a little more weathered. Her mother’s once mauve hair is streaked with white and while her father’s hair has been white for quite some time, he now sports an impressive beard. “Riyo!” Her mother exclaims and darts forward. “We saw on the news about… about the Jedi? They are traitors?”

Fox makes a sound that is not unlike a gag. 

“Can we talk about it later, momma? We need help.”

“You can have anything you need, love. Ro,” her mother calls, turning towards her husband.

The older Pantoran steps forward, under Fox’s other side. “Come on, son. Let’s get you two inside. I have a feeling your journey here was not peaceful.”

Riyo couldn’t have understated their turmoils any better. 

~

In the guest bedroom, Fox lays on top of the soft maroon quilt, staring catatonically up at the ceiling. The bed is too soft. The air, too cool. The atmosphere, too serene. Everything should be peaceful, yet he feels like he is drowning in the raging storm of his mind. He is reminded of the terrible storms on Kamino; he had been scared shitless, but his little brothers had needed him. Especially Wolffe, he will never admit it, but had been terrified of storms when he was a little cadet. Fox had been too, but he has always been very good at pushing aside his own fear to care for the ones who needed him. 

Thinking of Wolffe brings a fresh wave of nausea and he rolls to his side, trying to quell it. 

Good soldiers follow orders. 

When he had stumbled upon Riyo in the Senate Hall, a war had erupted in his mind. There she was, his best friend, his soulmate, but when he had tried to warn her - all that came from his mouth was the fabricated line that had been fed to him. “The Jedi have betrayed the Republic, ma’am.”

Riyo had frozen, her amber eyes boring into him. “Fox, what do you mean?”

The chip didn’t recognize his name. It only chanted that fucking phrase over and over and over and over. 

Good soldiers follow orders. 

“The Jedi have tried to assassinate the Emperor, ma’am. I’m on my way to the Jedi Temple to eliminate further threats towards this great empire.”

She reeled back. “On whose orders?”

“The Emperor’s, ma’am.” His body had tried to shove past her, but he was still trying to think of a way to warn her, to take some control back. 

“Fox this isn’t right. What’re you doing!?” 

He smiled. He  _ fucking smiled _ . “I serve at the pleasure of our great Emperor, ma’am.”

Before he turned, he saw the glint in her eyes and he knew, he knew he had been successful. Then everything went black. 

Now all he can think about is that he has abandoned his men. What has come of Thire and Stone? What about his brothers, Cody, Wolffe, Bly and Rex? All of his brothers had loved their Jedi in different ways. Cody and General Kenobi were best friends, Wolffe saw General Koon as a father, it was the GAR’s best kept secret that General Secura and Bly were lovers, and Rex had loved General Skywalker and Commander Tano like surrogate brothers. 

Order 66 has just decimated the families that the clones had stitched together for themselves. The only thing they had been able to claim as their own, turned out not to be theirs at all.

“Fox?” He hears Riyo’s soft voice from the door. “Are… are you okay?”

He finally peels his eyes from the wall and looks at her. She is standing with her arms hugged tightly around her. His already shattered heart shatters a touch more when he sees the fear in her eyes. 

She’s afraid of him. 

“No,” he chokes. Immediately she rushes to him and folds herself around him. He had always been surprised by her warmth, but now he yearns for it. She’s a sun in an endless galaxy of darkness and he wants nothing more than to catch aflame. 

“You’re okay,” she murmurs. “It’s okay to break. I’ve got you.”

“I can’t,” he hisses through clenched teeth. 

“I’ve got you,” she murmurs, squeezing him tighter. 

He lets himself fall apart. 

~

Days pass, and Fox finds it hard to get out of bed, but eventually Riyo manages to drag him out into the rice field with her. She works at pulling weeds out of the rice fields and he follows suit with some patient guidance from her. The first weed he had pulled hadn’t been a weed at all. His shoulders and back are already starting to ache, but he welcomes the pain. It’s good to have the emotional ache replaced by something more palpable. 

Standing upright, popping several of his vertebrae along the way, he looks up at the sky. To the east, the sky is nearly black with rain clouds and above them is a dreary overcast. Not that Pantora is a particularly sunny place to begin with, it definitely looks like a storm is brewing. 

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” he states lamely. 

Riyo straightens and looks up at the sky, “Indeed.”

“Should we head inside soon?”

She shrugs and goes back to work, “There is no danger unless there is lightning.”

Fox casts another look to the storm on the horizon before turning back to pulling weeds. Slowly, he feels plops of rain hit his back and stands back upright. “We should really consider going inside.” He doesn’t like the idea of being rained on without armor mostly because he doesn’t want either of them to catch a cold, but also wet fabric that is not a thick, moisture-resistant bodysuit just feels terrible against the skin. 

She stands up straight and looks at the horizon. “I think we still have a few more minutes of weed pulling before the lightning begins.” She saunters towards him, well, as best as she can in water almost up to her knees. “Besides, where is your sense of adventure?”

Oh, he’s heard that phrase before, and it is normally followed by something very, very reckless. Just then the skies break open and rain pours down on them. She giggles as the cold water rushes down her spine and pulls herself closer to Fox, dragging her lips across his. 

He pulls away, “Riyo-” 

“Quit trying to protect me Fox,” she interjects, wrapping her hands around his neck and playing with his hair. “And live in the moment with me.” 

He bends down and accepts her soft lips before tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her inside because damn it. He isn’t going to let her get pneumonia, not now. Not when she’s the only family he has left. 

~

They sit around the kitchen table for breakfast. It’s nice. Fox isn’t used to eating scheduled meals - of course the mess had always been open at certain times, but he had never had time to go there. Instead, he survived off of spite, ration cubes, and caf. Sitting here with her family is calming. It’s nice. He doesn’t feel rushed to get work done and he even laughs when their family tooka runs off with a piece of toast. 

“So Fox, my boy,” her dad rests a withered hand on his wrist. “I need to run into town today, but I need to get my plow up and running. You wouldn’t happen to know much about mechanics, would you?”

Fox nods slowly; it had been a guilty pleasure, once upon a time ago. “Yes, sir. I’ve fixed up a couple speeder bikes in my day, but, ah, never a plow.”

Her pats his wrist. “You fix one machine, you’ve fixed them all. I’m sure you’ll have it up and running in no time.”

~

Fox has been in the barn for hours now and Riyo is a little more than worried. She has been trying to give him his space - they did just go through something terribly traumatic together - but at the same time, she’s afraid to leave him alone. Especially in a barn with countless sharp, possibly life-ending tools. So, after the fourth hour of silence on his part, she makes her way out into the barn, steeling herself for something gruesome. 

If she finds him bleeding out on the floor, she’s not certain she will be able to bear it. 

“Fox?” She asks tentatively, pushing open the door and balancing a tray of food for him. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast and she knows how he gets wrapped up in his work. 

But when she hears nothing in response, her heart races. 

“Fox?” She steps further into the barn. 

There is a crash and a curse. “Riyo! Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” he stands up from under the plow. She smiles upon seeing him. 

He looks  _ alive _ . 

His hair has grown out, along with his beard, and he has a smudge of oil across his cheekbone. She wants to kiss him senseless and thank the stars and moons for healing him. “Just coming to check on you, and bring you some food. I know how you get when you’re working.”

He smiles and her heart flutters. It’s the first smile that she has seen him smile since they fled Coruscant. “Thank you.”

“How’s it coming?” 

With the eagerness of a child, his face lights up, “It’s coming really well. Here take a look.”

She crawls under the plow with him and he starts pointing and explaining - near rambling, the words are flowing from his mouth with such a speed - and she can’t help but be in awe of him. His face is alight with a passion she’s never seen before. He gestures to each part, explaining how it works down to the bolt, and how it contributes to the machine as a whole. It’s amazing, really, to listen to him like this. All she sees is a hunk of broken machinery, but he sees tiny pieces that all play their part, that all function with synchrony. 

“What?” he asks, blushing. 

“I love you,” she blurts. Because she does, she does love him. She loves him more than anything and while they have never exchanged those three words, they have said them a thousand different times in a thousand different ways. In the quiet murmurings between sheets, in the stolen touches in empty elevators, in the gentle reassurances that they’re alive, that they’re safe. 

His smile brightens and he murmurs. “I love you too.”

Leaning over, she presses a gentle kiss to his lips. “So, where did you learn all of this?”

He blushes. “I, uh, used to fix up the speeders for the boys on Coruscant. I actually liked doing it though, so it was never a chore. Every time I’d try and teach them, they’d just get bored and meander off to go shoot things in the training range.”

She chuckles. “Well, consider me thoroughly impressed with your range of knowledge.”

He smiles. “I also can say the alphabet backwards, in case you wanted to know some of my other strange talents.”

“Oh?”

He laughs. “Yeah you can only count backwards from 100 so many times before you throttle someone.”

She laughs. “There’s my Fox.” 

“Sorry I’ve been… gone for so long,” he murmurs. 

“It takes time to heal, Fox, and we have the rest of our lifetime to do so.”

“I’d like that.”

She moves over and kisses him again. Outside, she vaguely recognizes that it is storming, but she pays it no mind. The world outside can thunder and rage, but right now, with Fox, she is warm and safe and perhaps even a little optimistic for what their future holds. 

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't turn out as fluffy as I had intended it to, but I hope you all still enjoy it! <3


End file.
